Hospital Wins Approval Of Surgery-center Plans

December 24, 1991|By JOHN M. MORAN; Courant Staff Writer

Manchester Memorial Hospital has won state approval of its plans to build a one-day surgery center. In return, the hospital has agreed to significant cutbacks in the number of licensed beds it maintains.

Approval of the $10.2 million facility was granted last week by the state Commission on Hospitals and Health Care, which has been reviewing the hospital's construction proposal for months.

Construction is expected to begin in May or June 1992 and be completed by January 1994.

The new unit will be financed with money the hospital has in reserve for such projects and with tax-exempt bonds issued by the state.

"We are pleased to have been able to come to agreement with the commission on the ambulatory surgery center," hospital President Michael Gallacher said.

"We have long felt that this center was needed in order for us to provide comprehensive, convenient and easily accessible out-patient surgical services to our community."

According to hospital figures, nearly 60 percent of the 7,781 surgical procedures performed in 1989 were ambulatory. That percentage is expected to increase in the years ahead.

Commissioner Donald Pogue had insisted on cuts in the number of hospital in-patient beds as a means of containing health-care costs.

Pogue also said that the new surgery center should help reduce the number of patients who must stay in the hospital overnight.

Under the agreement, the hospital will cut 18 percent of its licensed beds -- dropping from 303 to 249 beds by Sept. 30. In addition, the hospital must plan more ways to reduce its average occupancy to 190 patients by December 1994.

Hospital officials have declined to discuss what implication the reductions in licensed beds will have on hospital staffing or revenue. But they contend that the cuts will have no impact on the availability of beds or on services to patients.

The surgery center is planned as a two-story addition to the northwest corner of the hospital, next to the surgical suite and sterile processing area.